Syrian Freedom

Syrian regime in control of Kherbet Ghazaleh - #Syria

Syrian troops have taken control of a town near the main road linking the capital, Damascus, with Jordan, an advance in the regime’s campaign to drive rebels from the south, an activist group has said.

Rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad are trying to carve a pathway from the Jordanian border through the southern province of Deraa in what is seen as their best chance of capturing Damascus.

A few weeks ago they scored significant gains but suffered setbacks after the regime launched a counteroffensive.

In recent days, regime troops and rebel fighters have battled over Khirbet Ghazaleh. Regime forces retook the town near the Damascus-Jordan road on Sunday and rebels withdrew from the area, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Troops reopened the road, restoring the supply line between Damascus and Deraa city, the contested provincial capital, he said. Regime forces were carrying out raids and searching homes in Khirbet Ghazaleh on Monday.

Damascus, still overwhelmingly under regime control, is the ultimate prize in a largely deadlocked civil war. Rebels control large parts of the countryside in northern Syria, but those areas are further away from the capital than the Jordanian border.

Arab officials and western military experts have said Middle Eastern powers opposed to Assad have stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels, with Jordan opening up as a new route.

The uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. Over the weekend, the Observatory issued an estimated death toll of more than 80,000, with almost half of them civilians. In February, the UN said at least 70,000 Syrians had been killed.

Western leaders face growing pressure to find a way to end the conflict – because of the rising death toll and fears that neighbouring Israel or Turkey could inadvertently get pulled deeper into it.

Turkey has blamed the Assad regime for twin car bombs on Saturday that killed 46 people and wounded scores in a border town that serves as a hub for Syrian refugees and rebels.

Turkey said it would not be dragged into the quagmire but tensions between the former allies run high.

This month Israel launched back-to-back air strikes in Syria against what it said were shipments of advanced Iranian missiles. Israeli officials signalled there would be more attacks unless its neighbour refrained from trying to deliver such “game-changing” missiles to its ally Hezbollah, an anti-Israel militia in Lebanon.

For now, the west is placing its hopes on a diplomatic plan that previously ran aground but now appears to have stronger Russian backing.

Last week the US and Russia agreed to revive the idea of negotiations between Syria’s political opposition and members of the regime on a transitional government, accompanied by an open-ended ceasefire.

05/13/2013 - Guardian

01/06/2013 - #Syria - Daraya - Assad tanks trying to enter the city

01/03/2012 - #Syria - Aleppo, Salaheddin - Clashes between
Rebels and Assad forces

#Syria Nov 25/12 FSA give Assad troops at the citadel a chance to surrender

#Syria, Assad tours Aleppo, orders more troops into battle: paper

02/10/12

FILES - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher (L) attending their father’s funeral in Damascus on June 13, 2000. (AFP PHOTO/RAMZI HAIDAR)

BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad is visiting the city of Aleppo to take a first-hand look at the fighting between government forces and rebels and has ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle, a Lebanese paper said on Tuesday.

Al-Diyar newspaper, which is known for its pro-Assad stance, said the president had flown by helicopter at dawn from the presidential palace in Damascus to Aleppo.

It did not specify what day the trip started but said that Assad was still in Aleppo. The visit was decided on after reports that the situation in the city, Syria’s largest and its commercial center, had become very serious.

” President Assad ordered units 5 and 6, estimated to be 30,000 soldiers and 2,000 personnel carriers, to move from Hama to Aleppo and to attack any occupied areas of Aleppo province from the Turkish border,” it said.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the report. An employee of al-Diyar told Reuters it had a correspondent in the city. Syrian state media made no mention of any visit.

Rebels mounted a new offensive last week to seize the city, which was until July firmly under Assad’s control. They claim to hold most of the Old City but are struggling to hang on to their positions in the face of heavy artillery fire.

The rebel forces are in the east and Assad’s forces in the west of Aleppo. Fires started by the combat have gutted the historic market in the Old City, a world heritage site.

Opposition activists say 30,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old anti-Assad uprising, which has grown into a full-scale civil war.

For much of the revolt, Assad retained a grip on Aleppo. Many rich merchants and minority groups, fearful of instability, chose to stay neutral while pro-democracy protests spread.

Syrian authorities have painted the uprising as a foreign-backed “terrorist” conspiracy.

The paper said that Assad gave orders that Aleppo must be “cleansed” during the visit.

25/08/2012 - #Syria - Daraya, Assad troops committing massacre in the streets of Daraya!

‘Expectations of big push’ by government forces in Aleppo, #Syria

05/08/12

5 August 2012 Last updated at 05:19 ET

Military sources in Syria say 20,000 troops are now massed in and around the city of Aleppo, where the army is fighting to drive out rebel forces.

Fighter jets, helicopter gunships, and artillery are already bombarding rebel positions, but the rebels are said to be well dug in.

In Damascus, the army says it has retaken the last rebel stronghold.

The BBC’s Jim Muir reports from Beirut. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19134736

#Syria Russian intentions are unclear

By Mark Adomanis

The announcement of two Russian amphibious warships bound for Syria is strange. Not because the Russians are above meddling in a conflict zone or are committed to the principle of non-interference. But because deploying ships and marines represents an escalation in the Syrian conflict — an escalation the Russians have expressly avoided. On the same day news first broke about the deployment of Russian warships, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, totally in line with its previous position, announced that it was seeking the early resumption of the UN mission in Syria.

With conflicting messages coming from different parts of the Russian government, it’s unclear what precisely Russian intentions actually are.

One possibility is that the Russian Ministry of Defense was victorious in an internal bureaucratic struggle against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Russian Defense Ministry convinced Russian president Vladimir Putin and the political leadership that it was time for Russia to stop dithering and draw a line in the sand. Under this scenario Russia will under no circumstances accept Assad’s departure and that it will do everything in its power to ensure he survives, even if that involves committing small numbers of troops.

A slightly more likely, if still unrealistic, possibility is that the ships’ deployment is an extremely limited mission that has no ulterior motive besides the protection of Russian citizens and military personnel stationed at Tartus and ensuring that Russia’s physical assets there are protected from Syria’s rapidly deteriorating security situation. Russian military officers often have less than astute political sensibilities. It’s possible they would take a narrow view of the expedition that to American and Western sensibilities would seem ostentatiously political.

What I consider the most likely possibility is that somewhere along the line the wires got crossed and the deployment was announced either as a mistake or floated by the Russian Defense Ministry to test the domestic and international reactions.

The Russian government is notoriously bureaucratic and inefficient. The Russian defense and diplomatic apparatuses have a long history of working at cross-purposes and generally get in each other’s way. Things got so bad during the 1990s that the Russians came up with the term mnogogolosie (multivoicedness). The word describes situations in which the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were independently pursuing incompatible policies, for example in Georgia or Moldova. Things have generally been less chaotic and better organized since Putin instituted the “vertical of power,” the short-hand term for the centralized system of top-down bureaucratic political control centered on the Kremlin generally and in Putin personally. Despite the changes, both offices have very different ideas about what Russia ought to do and how it ought to act.

Calling the deployment a gaffe or mistake is given some credence when we look at what the Russians are actually sending to Tartus: the Tsezar’ Kuznikov and the Nikolai Fil’chenkov. These two aging tank transport ships with a combined total of 600 Russian marines have decidedly limited capabilities and are not serious tools of power projection. The deployment of the Tsezar’ Kuznikov and the Nikolai Fil’chenkov (if they have, in fact, actually been dispatched) is not a serious attempt at military influence but is rather an attempt to demonstrate Russia’s geopolitical relevance by showing the flag.

Given Putin’s generally risk-averse nature it’s difficult to believe this deployment is a serious attempt at a Russian peacekeeping mission. Putin knows better than most the limitations of Russia’s armed forces and their limited expeditionary capabilities. Given Russia’s experiences in the North Caucasus, it’s difficult to imagine a realistic scenario in which he would willingly sign up for the thankless and bloody task of policing a sectarian civil war in a Muslim-majority country. For all his saber rattling Putin has kept defense spending at a generally low level, preferring to use Russia’s status as an energy superpower as his primary means of exerting influence.

If Russia actually does dispatch troops to Syria, if those two ships and the accompanying marines actually arrive and set up shop in Tartus, that would represent not only a worrying escalation of an already worsening conflict but a truly shocking, and terrifying, lack of good sense on the part of the Russian leadership. Russia, faces the serious potential of domestic political instability, and, even in the most optimistic reckoning, has any number of priorities more pressing than intervening in Syria. One of the most potent political forces now opposing Putin are Russian nationalists who are opposed to subsidizing the North Caucasus. If Russian nationalists oppose subsidizing constituent parts of the Russian Federation, they will even more strenuously object to spending blood and treasure in a place such as Syria. Given the paucity of capabilities at Russia’s disposal and the extreme domestic political risks inherent in intervening in Syria, until there is verifiable evidence to the contrary this entire episode is part of a botched attempt at bureaucratic infighting that was blown out of proportion by an exceedingly well-timed and well-placed news story.

06/07/12 #Syria Assad troops setting fire to crops in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib

Syria violence kills 15 even as UN mission grows

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Violence in Syria cost at least 15 lives on Saturday as a UN force to oversee a truce neared half its planned strength, monitors said.

In Idlib province, a stronghold near the Turkish border of rebels fighting President Bahar al-Assad’s regime, security force gunfire killed a man and a woman during a series of raids, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Another civilian and a child were killed in pre-dawn shelling in central Hama province, the Britain-based watchdog said, while a fifth was killed by sniper fire in the northeastern city of Deir Ezzor.

Meanwhile, nine soldiers and an army deserter were killed in clashes between rebel groups and regime forces in Idlib province, according to the Observatory.

For its part, state news agency SANA said authorities thwarted an infiltration attempt by an “armed terrorist group” from Turkey and entered the Idlib city of Jisr al-Shughur.

Syrian forces killed and wounded a number of the “terrorists,” as the rest fled back into Turkey, SANA added, saying the groups’ weapons had been seized and RPG launchers and machineguns.

Elsewhere, troops also clashed with rebel fighters in the flashpoint central province of Homs, in southern Daraa province, and in several areas of Damascus province.

Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported two Turkish journalists who were held in Syria for two months before being freed thanks to Iranian mediation arrived in Tehran on Saturday.

Reporter Adem Ozkose and cameraman Hamit Coskun were flown to Tehran from Damascus, and the two men told Anatolia they were in good health.

A military court, meanwhile, has released eight activists, including blogger Razan Ghazzawi, until their May 29 trial on charges of “possession of banned publications,” human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni said on Saturday.

The persistent violence came as the UN mission in Syria said it now had 145 military observers on the ground, just shy of half the force of 300 authorised by the Security Council. They are backed by 56 civilian staff.

The observers are tasked with shoring up a ceasefire brokered by UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan that was supposed to take effect on April 12 but which has been broken daily.

On Thursday, twin suicide bombings in the capital killed at least 55 people and wounded 372 — the deadliest attacks since the uprising against Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011.

Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group unknown before the Syrian revolt, released a video on Saturday claiming responsibility for the attacks as revenge for regime bombing of residential areas in several parts of the country.

Claims by the group, including for past bombings, have been hard to verify. In the latest video, the speaker’s voice was electronically modified and no militants were visible.

State media have accused the West and its regional allies of opening the door to Al-Qaeda through its backing of the opposition.

And Information Minister Adnan Mahmud denounced what he called a “terrorist escalation,” which he said was born of “the terrorist and bloody alliance between armed bands and Al-Qaeda, with states in the region and the West who arm and finance them.”

But the main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council, has accused the authorities of resorting to the “terrorism” itself in a bid to torpedo Annan’s peace plan.

According to the Observatory, another 17 people were killed in violence on Friday, including 12 civilians, while the total death toll has climbed to more than 930, over two-thirds of them civilians, since the battered ceasefire.

#Syria and UN reach agreement on truce monitors, Annan says

Edith M. Lederer

The Associated Press

Published Thursday, Apr. 19, 2012 1:08AM EDT

Last updated Thursday, Apr. 19, 2012 8:52AM EDT

International envoy Kofi Annan says Syria and the United Nations have reached an agreement on the rules governing the UN’s advance team of truce monitors.

Mr. Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi says the agreement covers how the team of up to 30 observers will “monitor and support a cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties” and implement Mr. Annan’s six-point peace plan.

Mr. Fawzi said in a statement the agreement negotiated Thursday outlines the observers’ functions and the “tasks and responsibilities” of the Syrian government.

He says Mr. Annan also is having “similar discussions” with opposition figures to reach agreement on “the tasks and responsibilities of armed opposition groups.”

A small UN advance team is in Syria trying to salvage a week-old ceasefire.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said late Wednesday he isn’t underestimating the gravity of the situation in Syria but believes there is an opportunity for progress and recommended the Security Council approve a 300-strong UN observer mission.

Mr. Ban said in a letter to the council obtained by The Associated Press that he will consider developments on the ground, including consolidation of the ceasefire, before deciding on when to deploy the expanded mission, which is larger than the 250 observers initially envisioned.

The UN chief said the level of violence dropped markedly on April 12, the day a ceasefire called for by international envoy Kofi Annan went into effect, but that violent incidents and reported casualties have escalated again in recent days and “the cessation of armed violence in all its forms is therefore clearly incomplete.”

At the same time, Mr. Ban said, the Syrian government and opposition have continued to express their commitment to a ceasefire and have agreed to co-operate with a UN observer mission.

“I remain deeply concerned about the gravity of the situation in the country,” he said. “However, without underestimating the serious challenges ahead, an opportunity for progress may now exist, on which we need to build.”

Mr. Ban said Syria has not fully implemented its initial requirement under Mr. Annan’s six-point plan to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from towns and cities and return them to barracks.

He said members of the small advance team on the ground in Syria enjoyed freedom of movement on a visit to the southern city of Daraa on Tuesday where they saw buses and trucks with soldiers dispersed throughout the city.

On Wednesday, he said, the advance team visited Jobar, Zamalka and Arbeen in suburban Damascus and reported the presence of military at checkpoints and around some public squares and buildings in all three locations. In Arbeen, he said, one armoured personnel carrier was hidden, covered by a plastic sheet.

“The situation in Arbeen became tense when a crowd that was part of an opposition demonstration forced United Nations vehicles to a checkpoint,” Mr. Ban said. “Subsequently, the crowd was dispersed by firing projectiles. Those responsible for the firing could not be ascertained by the United Nations military observers.”

The secretary-general said no injuries were observed by the advance team but one U.N. vehicle “was damaged slightly during the incident.”

Mr. Ban said the team’s initial request to visit Homs – the city at the centre of the 13-month conflict – “was not granted, with officials claiming security concerns.”

The UN chief said action on other parts of Mr. Annan’s six-point plan “remains partial, and, while difficult to assess, it does not amount yet to the clear signal expected from Syrian authorities.”

Regarding the right to protest freely, he said, reports from local opposition groups suggest there was “a more restrained response” to demonstrations on April 13 – the day after the ceasefire took effect – “but there were nevertheless attempts to intimidate protesters, including reports of incidents of rifle fire by government troops.”

On detainees, Mr. Ban said “the status and circumstances of thousands of detainees across the country remains unclear and there continue to be concerning reports of significant abuses.” He added that “there has been no significant release of detainees.”

While the Syrian government said entry visas were granted to 53 Arab and foreign journalists, Mr. Ban said the UN has no further information and he again demanded that all journalists “have full freedom of movement throughout the country.”

Mr. Annan’s plan calls for unrestricted humanitarian access but Mr. Ban said “no substantive progress has been achieved over the last weeks of negotiations” on access to the one million people in need of aid.

“Developments since April 12 underline the importance of sending a clear message to the authorities that a cessation of armed violence must be respected in full, and that action is needed on all aspects of the six-point plan,” Mr. Ban said.

French preisdent Nicolas Sarkozy also weighed in on the crisis in Syria.

Mr. Sarkozy called for humanitarian corridors in Syria to help those opposing Mr. al-Assad.

Mr. Sarkozy also told Europe 1 radio Friday that Mr. al-Assad is a liar who wants to destroy the beleaguered city of Homs just like Libya’s Col. Gadhafi wanted to raze Benghazi.

Mr. Sarkozy spoke hours ahead of a meeting in Paris of the Friends of Syria group of nations.

He said that “Bashar Assad lies shamelessly. He wants to wipe Homs off the map just like (former Libyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi wanted to raze Benghazi from the map” despite a ceasefire.

Mr. Sarkozy predicted that the stance of Russia and China, which have opposed UN sanctions against Mr. al-Assad, will evolve because they “don’t like to be isolated.”

#Syrian military kills civilians in reprisals, ‘executes own troops’

Russian FM urges Assad to begin withdrawing troops from #Syria’s cities |

Mon, 2 Apr 2012, 14:34 GMT+3 - Armenia

Syria’s government must take the first step toward settling the country’s conflict by pulling troops from city streets, Russia’s foreign minister has said, raising pressure on an old ally.

While Sergei Lavrov added that the country’s opposition forces should quickly follow suit and withdraw too, his statement appeared to reflect Moscow’s increasing impatience with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia, along with China, has twice shielded Assad from United Nations sanctions over his crackdown on an uprising in which more than 9,000 people have been killed. But Moscow also has strongly supported a plan to settle the crisis by Kofi Annan, the joint UN and Arab League envoy for Syria.

“The Syrian government must take the first step and start the troop withdrawal in line with Kofi Annan’s plan,” Lavrov said at a briefing in Yerevan following talks with his Armenian counterpart.

Lavrov’s statement challenged the stance taken by the Syrian government, which has said it would not withdraw forces from towns and cities until life returns to normal. He added, however, that the opposition needs to reciprocate quickly.

“Unless the beginning of such withdrawal isn’t accompanied by a similar action by all those fighting the government of Syria, I don’t think we will achieve any result,” he added.

Lavrov warned the West against giving ultimatums to Damascus, saying that the priority now should be to separate the warring parties and open the way for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

“Ultimatums and artificial deadlines rarely help,” he said. “We all want a quick end to bloodshed, but that demand should be addressed to all warring parties in Syria.”

He said that Moscow will soon host two separate opposition delegations for talks.

Here’s Why The Reports About Russian Troops In #Syria Are Very Misleading

Adam Taylor 20/03/12

Multiple outlets (including us) picked up yesterday’s ABC News story about Russian anti-terrorism troops arriving in Syria, and a version of the story currently sits near the top of Reddit under the title “Russian troops roll into Syria to support Assad” — as the story was originally titled when syndicated to Yahoo News.

Given that Russia has today decided to approve UN and Red Cross-led efforts to control the violence in Syria, this story confused us — Russia seemed to be sending mixed messages.

Remember, this is the key part of the story (pay attention to the juxtaposition of sentences):

Now the Russian Black Sea fleet’s Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency.

Zero Hedge has done some digging on the Russian sources behind the ABC News report, finding a somewhat different perspective.

What ABC News wrote:

RIA Novosti, a news outlet with strong ties to the Kremlin, trumpeted the news in a banner headline that appeared only on its Arabic language website. The Russian embassy to the U.S. and to the U.N. had no comment, saying they have “no particular information on” the arrival of a Russian anti-terrorism squad to Syria.

Zero Hedge writes points towards the Russian version of that cited-Ria Novosti story (excuse the confusing Google translation):

Defense Ministry denied the information circulated a number of media that the coast of Syria are ostensibly Russian warships.

“No Russian warships, performing tasks from the shores of Syria, no. In the Syrian port of Tartus 10 days of the ship auxiliary fleet tanker” Iman “which performs the tasks logistics - the replenishment of fuel and food - of the Black Sea and Northern Fleets, which provides security shipping in the Gulf of Aden anti-piracy “, - told RIA Novosti representative of management information and the Defense Ministry.

Previously, some Russian and foreign media reported that the Black Sea Fleet tanker “Iman” on board which is a group of Marines, ostensibly to perform combat missions off the coast of Syria.

The Arabic version of the article, specifically cited by ABC News, provide an unnamed source as saying there are two ships in the region, one containing a counter-terrorist force. However, It goes on to cite an Interfax report that says the ship was replacing a different ship which already contained Russian military, and the military is there to support “the evacuation of Russian nationals from there when necessary”.

After reading these sources, our takeaway from reading the reports cited by ABC doesn’t seem so different to the official Russian story — that a tanker has docked in Russia’s naval supply yard in Syria, with its standard anti-terrorism regiment attached due to frequent pirate attacks in the region.

Experts seem to agree. One analyst, Viktor Murakhovski, told the BBC’s Russian service that if there are troops onboard the ships, their numbers are “too small to have a serious impact on the events in Syria”. Another, Ilya Kramnik, said they were likely there to help evacuate civilians or for “the protection of the Russian base in the event of any incident and a possible cover-up of arms in case it will try to catch.”

Maybe Russia does have troops inside Syria. We don’t really know, but they have a naval base in the country, and due to their close links with the Syrian regime, it seems likely they may have a lot of Russian nationals in the country they want to evacuate should the situation in the country deteriorate. Hesitantly, we’d probably say they do have some sort of small military presence there.

But the idea that this anti-terrorist squad would actively be supporting the Syrian regime seems unlikely. While Russian domestic policy is sometimes stunningly cynical, Russia’s foreign policy is, if nothing else, based in extreme realism. And while they may drag their feet and offer all kinds of indirect support to Bashar Assad, supplying troops to actively fight on the ground is (we hope) a step too far.